Turkish indie developer TaleWorlds Entertainment became famous with the release of Mount & Blade, a surprise hit that exceeded all expectations.

Now, the expanded team is working on the highly anticipated sequel: Mount & Blade II Bannerlord. The game was featured in E3 2016’s PC Gaming Show, where TaleWorlds demonstrated the new siege system for the first time.

This has been majorly improved since the first game in the series, which will please those fans who gave their feedback on this feature. Gamers will now be able to choose different tactics and control their approach by positioning troops and weapons exactly where they desire; according to the developers, this will allow for a much more involved experience.

The siege demonstrated below had about 500 units in total, but TaleWorlds is confident that bigger sieges will be featured in the game without performance issues. Another significant improvement introduced by Mount & Blade II Bannerlord is the enhanced Artificial Intelligence (AI).

TaleWorlds promised “massive strides” with the AI so that the soldiers can now take smarter actions on the battlefield. For example, if you manage to open a breach in the castle the enemy commander NPC will try to close that breach.

Castle defenses are destructible and the AI will make the defenders retreat should the walls be lost to the attackers. An important note is that sounds aren’t final yet in the video below, so take that into account.

Mount and Blade II Bannerlord takes place circa 200 years before its predecessor, during the decline of the fictional Calradian Empire (modeled after the Roman Empire). As such, the weapons, armor and architecture are modeled after those available during the 600-1100 A.D.

The game should be available via Early Access later this year on PC, with the full release scheduled for some time in 2017.